00:00It has fuzzy purple tendrils and lives in space. What is it? Well, it's a potato. So where did it
00:06come from? Why is it in space? And does this mean The Martian was a documentary? Winding things back,
00:13NASA's oldest active astronaut, Don Pettit, now 71, flew to the International Space Station last
00:19year as part of Expedition 72. And in his off-duty time aboard the station, he decided to start a
00:25potato-browing experiment. With an improvised grow-light terrarium he fashioned, some velcro
00:31to keep the potato in place without gravity, and an old plastic drink bag in lieu of a pot,
00:36Spudnik's journey began. And while Mark Watney and The Martian found incredible success with his
00:42off-world potato farming venture, that was science fiction on Mars. And this is a very real space
00:48mission in the microgravity environment on the space station. But in the strange conditions,
00:54the potato actually sprouted spectacularly well. But also strangely. Being weightless,
01:00the potato's sprouts grew straight into the air. While in a weightless environment potato roots will
01:06grow toward moisture, they got a little confused and started going up, Pettit shared on social media.
01:12But despite its strange, fuzzy, purple, and gravity-defying appearance, this potato was still
01:19successfully growing in space. And while I have zero indication that any of the astronauts try to bite,
01:26experiments like this do bring us closer to better understanding how future astronauts on longer
01:32duration missions or on off-world locations like the Moon or Mars might survive. Now, I'm not sure if the
01:39Martian will ever fully become a reality. And for future astronauts' sake, I hope not. But potatoes are
01:46incredibly nutritious, so it's worth considering what role they might play in the wild future of human
01:52spaceflight.
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